Just looked on this thread for the first time. I remember reading somewhere that it is illegal to film crows in America for any commercial purpose.

I said that outloud in a pub once and was told buy man at bar that this was not true,

but, it IS illegal to have ownership of a crow (or any other migratory bird species) in America and thus, if said bird is from one of these animal stunt star tame creature places then that ownership would be the illegal bit.

Just looked on this thread for the first time. I remember reading somewhere that it is illegal to film crows in America for any commercial purpose.

I said that outloud in a pub once and was told buy man at bar that this was not true,

but, it IS illegal to have ownership of a crow (or any other migratory bird species) in America and thus, if said bird is from one of these animal stunt star tame creature places then that ownership would be the illegal bit.

I will let you all now put me bang to rights.

Well, if you were on the show you'd have been klaxoned after your first two sentences. But you're on the right track with migratory birds as the other posts show.

OK, so what were the birds in Hitchcock's "The Birds", they looked an awful lot like crows to me. Maybe they were Canadian Redneck crows.

This made me dig out my Hitchcock books.

From The Dark Side of Genius by Donald Spoto...

Quote:

... Ray Berwick trained hundreds of gulls and crows and ravens to dart at the right moment, to perch, return and swoop over the actors' heads. Mechanical birds were constructed for a few shots involving children...

The final great attack of the birds was to involve the leading lady herself: she would be caught in a room full of crows and gulls and ravens that would tear at her until she collapsed in a state of shock...

Birds were hurled at her; frightened, they flew away as she defended herself against the gulls and crows with wild, increasingly honest and unacted gestures of terror.

That's all I could find about the birds - doesn't say what type of crows they were or if they had to paint any to look like real crows.